Forsaking All Others

Something made her sense that she was being watched, and she glanced across the hall. Another man had followed the first into the hall, and as she met his dark eyes an odd little shiver of recognition struck her, although she knew that she had never seen him before in her life—unless it had been in her dreams…But the next instant she realised why he had seemed so familiar—he looked so much like Saskia’s fiancé that he had to be his older brother.

The couple in the hall stopped spinning, laughing and breathless, and Saskia struck her fiancé a playful blow on the chest. “Wretch—you’ve made me giddy now. Anyway, I want you to meet my very best friend.”

Brown eyes, as mischievous and friendly as a puppy’s, smiled up at Maddy, and at once he let Saskia go, darting up the stairs. “Oh boy—you’re gorgeous!” he flattered outrageously. “Sass, you never told me your friend was so beautiful.”

Maddy blushed, laughing at his teasing—but a little wary, anxious not to appear to be giving him any inappropriate encouragement. She held out her hand, smiling up at him. “Hello—I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” she said. “Saskia’s told me a lot about you.”

His dark eyebrows arched in surprise, and he chuckled richly. “Really? Not the truth, I hope, Sass? That’d ruin my chances before I’d even got started!”

Maddy flashed him a look of sharp discouragement, drawing her hand from his, but Saskia was laughing merrily. “Don’t be a loon, Jeremy—Maddy’s far too good for you.”

Maddy blinked at her in bewilderment. “Jeremy? But…I thought…”

“This is Leo.”

The other man had strolled forward, and Saskia linked her hands through his arm, holding on to him as if he was some kind of trophy. Maddy felt an odd sensation, like the twang of a loose guitar-string, way out of tune, deep in the pit of her stomach. But he was smiling up at her pleasantly, holding out his hand, and she put hers in it briefly.

“Hello, Maddy—I’ve heard a great deal about you,” he greeted her. “This young reprobate, for whom I have the misfortune to be frequently mistaken, is my cousin.”

It was easy to see how such a mistake could be made at a first glance—though not, Maddy concluded, at a second. Leo was older, though it was hard to tell by how much—five years, maybe? Both men were tall, though Leo had the advantage of maybe an inch or two—his shoulders were perhaps a little wider, too. They both had dark hair, almost black, but Jeremy wore his longer, curling around his ears—and he had the readier smile.

He was laughing now, flattered by his cousin’s epithet. “He’s got the brains, but I’ve got the charm,” he confided to Maddy. “Hey, you haven’t got a drink yet. Come on, stick with me, babe—I’ll take care of you.”

She allowed herself to be swept away, into the hubbub of the party. Jeremy found her a glass of champagne, and began introducing her to people. He seemed to know everyone there, and clearly he was extremely popular—with the men as well as the women. Held at his side by a casual arm around her waist, Maddy felt as if she had been caught up in the sparkling aura of a flashing comet.

It was a wonderful feeling, as intoxicating as the sweet, bubbly champagne she was sipping. Everyone wanted to know her, no one seemed to care about her shabby dress—in fact it almost began to seem as if it was she who was the most stylish, they who were overdressed. Jeremy’s laughter was infectious, and his outrageous compliments flattering enough to cause even the most solidly grounded common sense to waver.

As dusk descended the garden was lit up with brightly coloured paper lanterns, strung from the branches of the trees. A marquee had been set up on the lawn, and a local band was playing loud rock music for people to dance to. Breathless, Maddy let Jeremy spin her round in a wild jive, her long hair flying, as his friends cheered them on.

She had never enjoyed herself so much in her life. It had always seemed as if she was out of step; at school she had been the charity girl, in hand-me-down clothes, while ironically at college she had found that the manners and speech she had acquired at school tended to set her apart from her peers, who were inclined to regard her as a snob. But tonight she felt for the first time as if she was really accepted.

The only fly in the ointment was Saskia; catching sight of her hovering beside the French window that led into the house, Maddy was surprised to see a petulant expression marring that pretty face. A stab of guilt struck through her; it was Saskia’s engagement party, and here was she—Maddy—at the centre of attention. As soon as she could, she slipped away from Jeremy’s side and hurried over to her friend.

“Sassy—what’s wrong?” she asked gently. She glanced around. “Where’s Leo?”

Saskia shrugged her slim shoulders in a gesture of sulky indifference. “In Daddy’s den—he had an important call from New York.”

“Oh, what a pity—spoiling the party for him like that,” Maddy protested. “Still, I suppose he had to take it if it was really important.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Saskia asserted dismissively. “You seem to be enjoying yourself, anyway. Watch out for Jeremy, though—he’s a devil. If you’re not careful you’ll end up as just another name in his little black book.”

Maddy looked down at her friend in astonishment—surely that couldn’t be a note of jealousy she detected in her voice? But then Saskia sighed wistfully, tucking her hand confidingly into Maddy’s arm.

“I don’t seem to have had a chance to chat to you all evening,” she protested plaintively. “And it’s months since I’ve seen you.”

“Oh, Sassy—I’m sorry.” It was quite true, of course—it was Saskia who had invited her, and it had been selfish of her to go off with Jeremy all evening. “Come on, let’s go inside for a little while,” she coaxed. “It’s a little quieter in there.”

Saskia complied willingly enough, but within a few moments of them sitting down in the spacious drawing-room Jeremy came in search of them. “So this is where you’re hiding,” he declared, perching on the arm of the settee beside Maddy.

Saskia giggled, unmistakably flirting with him. “Oh, Jeremy—we weren’t hiding. We just popped in here for a breather—it’s such a dreadful crush!”

“Rubbish!” he insisted. “Time enough when you’re middle-aged to take a breather—come and dance!”

Saskia jumped up at once, laughingly accepting the invitation—though Maddy had thought it had been directed to her. But then these two were clearly old friends. And Sassy deserved to enjoy herself—after all, it was her party. As Jeremy caught at her hand to drag her along with them she shook her head, smiling to soften the refusal, following them more slowly.

The far end of the terrace was in shadow, and she retreated there for a while, watching the dancing a little wistfully—without Jeremy at her side, it seemed as if she had become invisible again. That familiar tug of envy twisted inside her; she was on the outside, as usual, unable to get in. Even Saskia had only really been friends with her because she had few friends herself—most people weren’t prepared to tolerate that sometimes irritating affectation…

“Not dancing?”

She glanced up in surprise to find Leo Ratcliffe at her side. “Oh…No, not just for the moment,” she managed a little awkwardly.

“I found this in the drawing-room—I believe it’s yours.”

He held out a small, heart-shaped gold locket, and Maddy gasped in shock, her hand flying automatically to her bare throat. “Oh, my goodness—yes, it is! Thank you.” She took it from him, agitation making her hands shake. She might have lost it, and it was the only thing she had…“The clasp isn’t broken—I must have not fastened it properly. It was a good job it slipped off here—I might have lost it on the train…”

And never seen it again. The bleakness of that thought brought tears to her eyes, but she quickly blinked them back under cover of refastening the chain around her neck—being extra careful this time that it was fastened properly.

“It’s a pretty little thing,” he remarked, lifting it on his finger to study the fine flower pattern wrought into the gold.

“Yes…”

Suddenly she became aware of how close she was to him. There was a faint, musky, male kind of scent about him—not an aftershave, she was sure, but the unique scent of his own skin. It seemed to have a strange effect on her senses, and when she looked up she found herself gazing into his eyes. Deep-set brown eyes—not quite the same colour as Jeremy’s, she realised now, but a shade darker, and intriguingly flecked with gold…

“Leo! You said you’d only be ten minutes, and you’ve been gone half an hour!” Saskia’s petulant voice shattered the fleeting spell as she dragged Jeremy up the steps of the terrace. “Come and dance with me.”

He shook his head, smiling down at her indulgently. “In this crush? No, thank you. Come and get something to eat instead.”

For a moment Saskia looked rebellious, but then she smiled sweetly, tucking her hands into his arms and stretching up on tiptoe to put a kiss on his cheek. “All right,” she conceded, her sapphire-blue eyes aglow with adoration. “If that’s what you want.”

Maddy watched them walk away. Was that how it always was with them? They did whatever he wanted? She had quite been beginning to like him—almost, even, to envy Saskia a little bit. It had even crossed her mind to wonder why a man of such apparent intelligence would choose to marry a featherbrain like Sass—fond as she was of her, she could describe her in no other way. But apparently he was one of those men who wanted a sweet, biddable little wife, who would hang on his every word and think he was absolutely wonderful. She was aware of feeling just a little disappointed in him.

But Jeremy was demanding her attention, dragging her out on to the dance-floor. She did enjoy dancing, and she couldn’t help but enjoy Jeremy’s company. And as the evening drew on, and the music slowed, she found that she enjoyed being in his arms, and being kissed by him. And, if her mind occasionally wandered to thoughts of Leo, she could remind herself that Jeremy was every bit as attractive, and certainly more fun. And he wasn’t engaged to her best friend.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHAT…was it you wanted to discuss, Leo?” Maddy enquired, relieved to find that her voice was now completely under control again.

With a wave of his hand he indicated the piles of bills and documents on the desk and on the floor around it, stuffed into shoe-boxes and old brown envelopes—Jeremy had never had much patience with paperwork. “This. I’ve been trying to go through Jeremy’s papers and see if there’s anything that needs my immediate attention, but it’s the biggest mess I’ve ever seen.”

The note of censure in his voice stung her into sharp annoyance. “I’m sure there’s nothing that can’t wait another few days,” she retorted. “Why are you going through it anyway? Shouldn’t that be left to the executors of the estate?”

“I am one of the executors,” he responded evenly. “You’re the other. We’ve also been named as joint trustees. Everything’s been left to Jamie, naturally—although you’re to have a lifetime annuity—and there are a few small gifts to the staff.”

“Oh…” A lump had risen to her throat, and her eyes filled up with tears; it was so sad to think of Jeremy drawing up his will, cheerfully expecting that it would be many years before it would be needed. And it was typical of his generosity to have remembered the staff—but why on earth had he had to make Leo her co-trustee?

The housekeeper’s arrival with the coffee gave her a few moments to regain her composure. She should have guessed, of course, that Jeremy would have wanted Leo to administer his estate; he had always looked up to his older cousin—maybe even been slightly in awe of him. And he hadn’t been aware that Maddy would have preferred not to have too much to do with him.

Leo brought over a small table, set it down beside her chair and put her coffee-cup on it before seating himself on the opposite side of the fireplace. “How has Jamie taken it?” he enquired.

“Oh…He seems OK. Well, you saw him. He’s old enough to understand, but not old enough to really take it in properly. He knows it means he won’t be seeing his daddy again, but I suppose it’ll be a while before the realisation sinks in.”

“Yes.” Leo’s voice had thickened. “It will be for me, too.”

“For all of us,” she mused sadly.

Leo’s cold laughter startled her. “Oh, come on,” he protested, on a note of cynical mockery. “Don’t start playing the broken-hearted widow. All it’s done for you is save you the bother of getting a divorce.”

“I beg your pardon?” Her eyes flashed with frosty indignation. “For your information, I was still very fond of Jeremy. And if I’d wanted a divorce, I could have had one years ago.”

“Not without Jeremy’s consent,” he countered. “You walked out on him, remember? As the guilty party, you could only sit it out for the full five years.”

She stared at him, struggling to regain sufficient control over her voice to answer him. “Don’t you think I may perhaps have had good reason?” she queried with fine understatement.

Those agate eyes were hard and unforgiving. “You knew what he was like when you married him,” he asserted disparagingly. “It didn’t seem to matter to you then. You just wanted the sort of lifestyle you thought he could give you—the chance to mix with the county set, go to all the country house parties. But marriage vows are for better or worse, you know—not to turn your back on just because things don’t turn out to be quite the bed of roses you were expecting.”

Maddy felt her cheeks go from white to deep scarlet. He didn’t know—Jeremy had never told him about Saskia. Of course not, she reflected wryly; even though that hopelessly misconceived engagement had ended inside of three months, Jeremy would have been reluctant to let his cousin know that he was having an affair with his ex-fiancée.

And she could hardly tell him now, she realised in the next instant; he probably wouldn’t believe her, and it would just seem to him that she was trying to off-load the blame on to Jeremy when he could no longer defend himself. Besides, what did it matter to her what he thought of her? Once, maybe—but that was a long time ago. Now she only had to think about what was best for Jamie. She had to work with Leo over the administration of the estate—it would be best if personal feelings didn’t come into it at all.

“What happened between Jeremy and I is none of your business,” she informed him, her voice stiff with dignity. “But neither of us particularly wanted a divorce—it wasn’t as if either of us was in any hurry to marry again. And besides, it was better for Jamie to leave things as they were. It was a perfectly amicable arrangement.”

He lifted one dark eyebrow in frank scepticism, but shrugged the discussion aside with a lift of his wide shoulders. “Well, I suppose it’s all somewhat academic now, anyway,” he remarked coldly. “It’s the future that we have to think about. I’ve made a list of the people who will need to be notified about the funeral arrangements…”

“Oh, have you?” she retorted in sharp annoyance. “Don’t you think perhaps you should have consulted me? I am the next of kin, you know.”

Anger, barely restrained, flared in his eyes. “Don’t get competitive about it,” he warned, his voice quiet with menace. “There’s only one person who’ll suffer if we make enemies of each other, and that’s your son.”

She drew in a sharp breath; was that merely a reminder, or a warning? But he was right, of course—they were going to have to co-operate with each other in order to ensure that Jamie’s inheritance would be worthwhile. And, more than that, it wouldn’t be good for him to have them arguing over his head; like his father, he seemed to have an inordinate regard for his “Uncle Leo”—most times after his monthly visits to Hadley Park he had had as much to say about Leo as about Jeremy. And the fact that Leo was the creator of his beloved EcoWarrior, as well as a number of other cult computergame figures, was enough to elevate him to the status almost of a demi-god.

Drawing in a long, steadying breath, she inclined her head in acknowledgement. “All right,” she conceded evenly. “May I see the list?”

He walked over to the desk and brought her back a sheet of paper, with a long list of names neatly written out in his handsome script—another way in which he had differed from Jeremy, she reflected, recalling her husband’s lazy scrawl.

“That seems OK,” she murmured; she knew most of the names on the list, and none of them were unexpected. She had known Saskia’s name would be on it, of course—she was family, her brother being married to Jeremy’s older sister Julia. Yes, Saskia would be there, weeping touchingly for her childhood friend—and Maddy would be the only one who would know that she was in truth an adulterous little bitch who had wrecked her best friend’s marriage.

“You’re sure?” Those deep-set agate eyes had noted the tautness of her jaw. “Is there anyone you think I—we—should add?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she responded coolly. “You’re suggesting that the funeral should be next week?”

“Yes. I would have gone for Friday, but it may be better to delay it, just in case there are any difficulties arising out of the inquest.”

“Why should there be?” she queried, surprised. “I thought it was a quite straightforward skiing accident.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Almost certainly—but, nevertheless, the authorities will have to be sure that there was no question of…anything else. Like whether he was drunk.”

“Drunk? Don’t be ridiculous! Jeremy could be a little wild at times, but he never drank too much.”

“How do you know?” Leo countered, a hard edge in his voice. “What would you know of his state of mind these past five years—what would you care? You saw him once a month when he came to fetch Jamie for his visit and brought him back.”

She stared at him, her hands shaking slightly. “Are you saying that he’d become an alcoholic?”

He shook his head impatiently. “No, I’m not. But I do know he was unhappy. He was still in love with you—maybe if you’d still been around…”

“Yes?” Maddy’s jaw was clenched tightly in anger. “Maybe if I’d still been around, what? He might not have had the accident—is that what you were going to say? That’s it’s all my fault?”

“No, of course not,” he rapped back. “It just…might have steadied him down a little…”

“I already had one child to think about,” she retorted hotly. “I couldn’t cope with two.” Fulminating grey eyes clashed with agate; Maddy could feel herself trembling—it was rare for her to be so close to losing her temper, and it was a feeling she didn’t like.

She was the first to look away. Leo was right, to some extent—she had married Jeremy for all the wrong reasons. Oh, she had been deeply fond of him—but she had never been in love with him. She had let him spin her into a whirlwind romance, dazzled by his good looks and his charm, and by the aching need inside her to fill the loneliness of her life. And because the man she had fallen instantly in love with had already been spoken for.

But she had kept that last fact a secret for almost nine years. It had been a painful irony to learn, on returning from their crazy honeymoon jaunt around Africa, that Leo and Saskia had ended their engagement just two weeks after her own wedding.

Not that it would really have made any difference, she acknowledged. Leo had made it abundantly clear from the beginning that, like the rest of the family, he disapproved of his cousin’s marriage. She did have some sympathy with their view that at twenty-one he had been far too young, but nothing could have been further from their belief that she had married him in order to claw her way a few rungs up the social ladder.

Leo sighed, and shrugged his wide shoulders in weary impatience. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to discuss it,” he conceded. “I understand you’ll be staying for a few days—Julia has arranged for you to have the Yellow Room. Jamie can go in the nursery, of course, as usual.”

“Thank you.” So Jeremy’s sister was here already, organising everything in her usual high-handed fashion. Maddy was surprised that they had even bothered to suggest she came down—between the two of them, they seemed to be making all the decisions. But then what else had she expected? They were, after all, Ratcliffes; everyone else was supposed to fall into step with them.

A tap at the door heralded the housekeeper’s return, to announce that lunch was ready. “Shall I bring it up to the morning-room?” she suggested. “You won’t want the big dining-room.”

Maddy was tempted to say that she would prefer to come down to the warm kitchen, but Leo had already agreed that the morning-room would be the most suitable, so she kept her mouth shut. But if he and his cousin Julia thought she was still the diffident young girl who had come into their family all those years ago, they could be in for a surprise. She had no intention of letting herself be pushed around—and no intention of letting them interfere in her son’s inheritance.

It was strange to be back, Maddy mused as she stood at the window of her bedroom, gazing out over the woodfringed parkland of the estate. The house was much as she remembered it—though she couldn’t help noticing that there were even more minor repairs that needed to be done, a few of them now becoming quite urgent if the fabric of the building was to be preserved.

It was a pity Jeremy hadn’t taken his responsibility to the family seat more seriously. She had tried to persuade him often enough, but it had usually led to an argument—he preferred to spend his money on cars and parties and having a good time. The income from the land that went with the estate—farm tenancies, mostly—had barely been enough to support such an extravagant lifestyle even then. His own father’s death, a couple of years before she had met him, had already taken quite a toll in death duties—a second charge now, not much more than ten years later, could well prove to be the last straw.

Which could mean that there was no alternative but to sell the house, or hand it over to the National Trust—if they would take it. But she didn’t want to do that—coming back here had reminded her of how important Hadley Park was to her. It was more than just a house—much more…

Unconsciously she lifted her hand to touch the tiny gold locket she always wore at her throat. It was the only thing that had come out of the fire that had destroyed her own home and killed her parents. She had been just twelve years old, and had survived only because of the odd irony that she had been in hospital having her tonsils out.

In that one night her whole childhood—all her memories, every photograph, every toy she had had since she was a baby—had disappeared. Without a history, she had always felt a strange, lingering sense of detachment, as if she was somehow a loose thread in the fabric of the human race—left dangling, not properly woven in.

It was a feeling that had to some extent gone away with the birth of her son, but she had never forgotten it. And now that she was back here, in the house that had belonged to his Ratcliffe ancestors for so many generations, she remembered how determined she had been that he should know that he had a history—it was here, in these old stone walls and the deep, solid earth that they stood upon. This was his birthright, and she was going to hold on to it for him—no matter what it took.

But she was going to have to think of a way to generate sufficient income to keep it going, she mused wryly. And that would be no easy task. It was rather too small, and lacked the kudos of real aristocratic connections, to attract many visitors if it were opened to the public. And she had no desire to fill the gardens with wild animals or fairground attractions.

As she stood there, gazing absently out at the garden as it waited for the touch of spring to ripen the green buds of the daffodils that grew in wild profusion in all the flowerbeds, her mind slipped back to that encounter with Leo. Seeing him again had brought back so many memories. She had thought she had put all that behind her, but, like lumber in the attic, she had never sorted it out properly, and now that the door had been opened again it had all come tumbling out…